Public procurement, governance and economic growth: some policy recommendations for Africa’s growth and development

Abstract

The paper presents an analytical insight into the link between public procurement, governance and economic growth. It shows that sound public procurement practice and good governance are closely related and that they both have the common goal of development. Employing the Keynesian income-expenditure approach to measuring the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), it revealed that sound public procurement is a vital ingredient for economic growth. It argues that faulty or weak public procurement systems and practices characterized by corruption and lack of accountability, transparency, competition, and fairness, etc. is a symptom of bad governance and these have tended to ―slow down‖ the pace of economic growth and development of African countries. The paper proffers sound public procurement practices as a panacea to the ailing economies of Africa‘s developing countries as this would help curb corruption, reduce wastage, enhance the effectiveness of government spending, ensure infrastructural development, enhance the welfare of the people, increase their attractiveness to foreign aid, official development assistance and loans and ultimately engender higher economic growth rate and development levels.

Keywords: Public procurement, Governance, Corruption, Economic growth, Africa.